


How Am I Gonna Be an Optimist About This?

by greenglowsgold



Category: Glee
Genre: Gen, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-20
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 19:43:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1660223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenglowsgold/pseuds/greenglowsgold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It shouldn't have been you, I never would have picked you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Am I Gonna Be an Optimist About This?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Pompeii' by Bastille, a cover of which I listened to while I wrote (and rewrote, and rewrote) this.

They head southwest.

Mike remembers something on a History Channel program about how the Hoover Dam is the most self-sustaining energy source in the world, and Santana’s willing to take that on faith, because there sure as hell aren’t any reliable sources around here.

They take her car, because it had a full tank of gas when shit started to go down, and the pumps aren’t working without electricity. Lima glows orange-red in the rearview mirror as they leave, and she almost wishes it were real fire because fire makes noise. All she has is the sound of Mike’s breathing beside her, not enough but also really fucking important.

 

They come to an unspoken agreement that turning on the radio — or, CDs, really, because the radio isn’t actually broadcasting anymore — would make things worse instead of better. The days of driving are silent, no matter who’s behind the wheel.

Nights are different, curled up on the living room couches of houses that belong to dead people. They sleep in the same room, but they plug their headphones into their phones (which don’t do much that’s useful now, but still play music) and close off. Mike listens to Journey and Jason Mraz and thinks about everyone who isn’t here.

They raided a Brookstone in Ohio and found these chargers that run off solar power or a hand crank. The solar thing is cool, but it doesn’t feel dependable enough. They spend all day turning the gears by hand so they can turn on their phones at night.

 

Small roads, small towns with SUVs parked neatly in the driveways are easier than highways, packed with vehicles. The reality of siphoning gas from other cars is gross enough without the smell of a corpse behind the wheel.

 

They raid the kitchens in the houses they borrow. It’s not out of necessity (there’s no competition at the grocery stores, unless mice count); they try to guess what a given family has stocked on their shelves.

Santana actually laughs when Mike correctly guesses a year’s supply of tic-tacs. They take the box with them, and everything they eat for the rest of the day tastes violently of mint.

 

If they weren’t literally the last people left on earth, Santana isn’t sure they would have found each other. Sure, they lived close, but out of all the people she thought to go looking for, Mike wasn’t at the top of her list. They’re lucky they caught each other at all, making a run through the supermarket before heading out of town in different directions.

Mike thinks, if they were literally the last people left on earth, they wouldn’t have found each other at all. It took them a day and a half. Statistically, they should have been in different countries. It makes him hopeful, that it’s just a matter of finding the others left.

 

Indiana is quiet.

So are Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, or at least the parts they wind through.

They spend days traveling across these states, which is much slower than they could be going, but the roads are trickier to navigate these days. Also, Mike’s foot lifts off the gas pedal a little every time he wonders whether Nevada will be quiet, too.

 

Santana has an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer stored on her phone for Brittany, which she’s watched so many times now that she can say the words along with the actors.

(They’re all dead, she thinks. The actors and the writers and cameramen and every little girl who watched the show and wanted to be a superhero. And Brittany.)

 

It takes them too long to realize that, just like they’re ignoring speed limits and stop signs, they don’t have to follow age restrictions, either. Or, more accurately, it takes them too long to put it into practice. They’re grabbing more water bottles in Hayes, Kansas when they notice there’s a liquor store down the block and hey, end of the world, right?

With alcohol warming their veins and smoothing their throats, they talk more than they have since everything went to shit (in two hours or less, record time). The words get worse, but they drink more so they can’t tell to stop. Before she passes out, Santana has a clear enough tongue to get out: _it shouldn’t have been you, I never would have picked_ you _._

She apologizes in the morning, but she doesn’t say she didn’t mean it, because she did, and Mike knows it because he would have meant it too. They don’t try drinking again.

 

Whenever Mike wakes up to find Santana lying with a pillow over her head, he knows he’s been saying names in his sleep. He’s either too kind or too cowardly to ask which ones.

 

They play ‘what do you miss most,’ and don’t have to specify rules about what’s allowed. Santana thinks for a full minute before answering: showers. Mike raises a half-empty water bottle in salute.

 

If this were a real goddamn apocalypse, something with zombies or warring factions or anything but this falsely peaceful _nothing_ they’ve been plunged into, maybe it would be easier. At least there’d be something to hit, besides each other.

 

In Colorado, they find a little terrier that’s really eager to see them. They see pets every so often, usually dashing out the door as soon as it’s open or dancing around their legs, frantic to be fed, but less and less as the days pass. This one looks happy, not desperate, and they figure out why when they see its owners weren’t good at keeping the food locked away.

It curls up in the living room with them overnight, and in the morning, it stands by the car, panting and wagging it tail like it expects to come with. It’s damn tiny, Santana thinks; it probably wouldn’t do well on its own. It probably wouldn’t help them out much either, but it’s the friendliest thing they’ve seen in hundreds of miles.

Mike goes back inside for the dog food.

 

Mike also names it: Penny. He smiles kind of weird when he says it, so Santana doesn’t ask if it means something.

Penny makes noise. Not all the time, but a lot more than anything else used to during daylight hours. She barks at things they pass by and pants heavy in the sun, and whines for them to pet her. After a while, they start to follow her lead, first to tell Penny to calm down and then to talk about other things.

 

They mostly suck at the kitchen cupboards guessing game, but the second eerily accurate prediction goes to Santana, who finds exactly 10 boxes of Frosted Flakes and 10 of Rice Krispies stored away. All the milk’s been spoiled by now, and the stove isn’t working, but they get creative with the fireplace and manage to melt an entire package of marshmallows and mix it in with the rice puffs.

It doesn’t really have a shape, because they don’t bother cooling it in a pan, and it burns their tongues a little, and they have to keep lifting it up so Penny doesn’t eat any, but it tastes amazing.

 

Santana snorts and smacks Mike on the arm when he makes a joke he won’t remember five minutes later about the heat in Utah, and it feels like a shock travelling through him.

 

The sound of the hand crank turning on the charger and Penny breathing on the seat between them is just loud enough that Mike almost doesn’t notice when Santana starts to hum. She doesn’t look away from the road, hands steady on the wheel, so Mike doesn’t say anything.

He closes his eyes and pretends for a moment that nothing has changed.

 

None of those dark, gritty survival movies ever had a scene where the characters go to a mall and raid Build-a-Bear. Santana kind of can’t believe they’re the first ones to think of it.

 

It’s nighttime, now, that’s more of a betrayal. Someone wakes up crying and can’t even remember the dream (nothing out of the ordinary). In the dark, someone else lets out a breath and a hand comes out to brush against their shoulder (that’s different).

 

Nevada is a whole lot of desert. They drive through the heat of the twenty-fourth day since the world ended, and into the twenty-fifth night, and there’s no GPS, just a paper map to tell them about how close they are to Las Vegas.

They don’t need the map. The city rises up out of the desert, shining like a constellation, what looks like every light in every building turned on against the darkness.


End file.
